


hell is empty (all the devils are here)

by ehj (caskettcase)



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Eventual Smut, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, SEASON TWO FINALE SPOILERS, and lots of feelings, eve chopping firewood to cope, featuring villanelle on a bear rug, post season two finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 01:24:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18982339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caskettcase/pseuds/ehj
Summary: "i was thinking... we should go to alaska."set post-season two finale.





	hell is empty (all the devils are here)

**Author's Note:**

> lets all put on our clown shoes together, fam.

Eve wakes up to the smell of firewood.

She shifts out of reflex, like she does every morning, only to cry out as a sharp pain tears through her side. She gasps for air, her hands flying on instinct to the spot where an angry wound has bloomed. Like a flower.

(It has been quite a year of growth for her, she supposes.)

Its then that she looks down to examine the wound more closely. It’s mostly covered by dressings and gauze, tendrils of bruising peeking out from the edges of the bandages. She sees flashes of memories—Roman ruins, birds flying up, a woman desperate for her affection, a gunshot—

She hears the sound of the shot all over again, and suddenly she’s wide awake.

Eve’s breathing has evened out now, and she traces along the bandages.

She shudders when she remembers that Villanelle has a matching scar on her own body from a stab wound.

Now they’re even.

Now they’ve both hurt each other.

Now they’re both off the deep end.

Now they’ve both killed.

Now they’ve both given up everything.

And Eve swears she’s having a fever dream when she hears the unmistakable Russian accent, until she finally tears her eyes away from her stomach.

“I told you I’d look after you.”

Her head jolts in the direction of the voice on instinct, and there, sitting across the room, lounged on an honest-to-god bear rug on the floor in front of a fire (this has to be a fever dream) is none other than Villanelle. Her hair is damp, presumably from a shower, and coupled with the same flamboyant blue and white tiger robe she’d seen her in just days prior.

(Was it days ago? Was it weeks ago? Eve can’t even remember. Time is running together at this point.)

(Time runs together when she’s with Villanelle.)

She’s laying on her side, perched up on an elbow, fidgeting with some unidentified object in her hands.

Eve strains to see what it is but can’t. She feels bile rising in her throat as she asks herself if it’s a gun. 

So many questions flood to Eve’s mind all at once: Where am I? What did you do? How did I get here? What the _fuck_ , Villanelle?

They’re all caught in her throat. She can’t get them out.

And the worst part is that tangled up in all those questions is the intrusive thought that Villanelle has no business looking that good laying there like that.

What comes out instead is a statement of the obvious, a grounding to reality.

“You shot me.”

Villanelle cocks her head to the side, raises her eyebrows, shrugs, and says, like it’s the most casual thing in the world, “You stabbed me.”

“Well now we’re even, aren’t we?”

Eve surprises herself with how steady her voice is. Her whole stomach is in knots and compounded with the constant throb of dull pain coming from her side, the way she suddenly feels too hot from the fire and the heavy blankets on top of her and too cold all at once has her feeling like she’s going to pass right back out again.

But on the exterior, she appears calm.

Eve wishes she were calm.

Wishes she would wake up from this hell.

She just prays that Villanelle can’t see right through her.

_We’re the same._

(She’ll never admit it out loud.)

Eve settles instead of sending herself further into an existential crisis (she had no idea mid-life crises could be this intense), to start getting answers to her many questions.

“Where are we?”

Villanelle reveals the object in her hands—a snow globe that Eve barely recognizes. Villanelle shakes it, her eyes filling with child-like wonder at the way the faux snowflakes dance around and slowly ease their way back to the bottom of the glass globe. She turns it toward Eve, so she can see ‘ALASKA’ printed along the ridge.

She knows the snow globe from her home. Her old home. (Is it even right to call it home?) She knows it belongs to Niko. Eve almost asks how Villanelle even came to own the souvenir but can barely get up the energy to bother.

It belonged to Niko—a souvenir he had gotten from a trip with his family while he and Eve were dating. Something that stood impractically on their mantle for years. 

It feels like a lifetime ago with Niko.

In a way, it is.

And really, she struggles to bring herself to care.

_You can’t go home, Eve._

She just doesn’t want to admit that Villanelle is right.

“I told you Alaska would be amazing.”

Eve scans the room. She wonders if Villanelle has had this cabin all along, if she just showed up with a passed out Eve in her arms and bought it. Or scared the owners away. Or worse.

Eve tries not to dwell on it.

The interior is all log; the fire is dancing in a stone fireplace across the room where Villanelle still lounges like a cat on the rug. Thankfully, that’s the beginning and end of the animal paraphernalia in the place. The walls are tastefully filled with landscape portraits, presumably of the natural beauty that exists around the state. There’s two small doors: one cracked open to reveal the floors to what Eve would guess is a bathroom, and the front door with a generic “Home Sweet Home!” rug symmetrically framing it. Aside from that, it’s all open space, a small kitchen behind Villanelle with a flare of the assassin’s style on the counter: an unopened bottle of champagne in a bucket of what appears of be melting snow from outside, two empty glasses, and the small gun that put a bullet just above Eve’s hip.

For the most part, it’s quaint.

It’s…normal.

_We’d be normal._

“This is your definition of amazing?” Eve finally responds.

The unspoken meaning is obvious.

_You shooting me is your definition of amazing?_

Villanelle shrugs again, continues to concentrate on the snow globe.

“Warm fire. Beautiful woman. Cozy cabin. I’d say so.”

Eve literally wants to throw herself into the fire at the way her heart skips a beat when Villanelle calls her beautiful. It’s so fucked up. _So_ fucked up. They’re so fucked up. How did she get here?

Wait—how did she even get here?

“How did you—why did you—”

Villanelle rolls her eyes and lays down fully on her back, stretching her arms above her head and letting out a moan that sounds much too similar to the ones Eve had heard from her over her comms in Rome.

Villanelle sits up and shakes her head.

“You ask too many questions.”

_And I—I have money, so you don’t need to worry about that._

It doesn’t even matter. She’s sure that Villanelle has all kinds of ridiculous connections despite the fact that everyone that Eve knows has turned on them.

“It’s been three days. You’ve woken up several times but never long enough to say much or really recognize where you are. You don’t remember, do you?”

The last thing Eve remembers is walking away from Villanelle in tears, under the watchful eyes of the Roman ruins. The sound of a gun firing. A sudden burst of pain.

“No. I don’t.”

Eve watches as Villanelle rises off the rug and heads to the kitchen counter, grabbing the bottle of champagne.

Eve winces at the sound of the top popping off. Reminds her of the gun shot all over again.  

Villanelle turns her back to Eve as she pours herself a glass.

“Where exactly are we? In Alaska?”

Villanelle tosses her reply over her shoulder.

“Somewhere outside of Ketchikan.”

She vaguely remembers Niko telling her about the town of Ketchikan—a popular tourist destination on one of the many islands that dots Alaska’s southeastern part. She remembers Niko telling her that the town prides itself on being the Salmon Capital of the World, how he went to go see a lumberjack show.

“You brought me to a tourist town?” Eve asks incredulously.

The town’s population is not much, but there are so many travelers in the area. And surely there are people looking for them by now and—

“No one will find us here.”

Villanelle has turned back to her now and says it evenly, calmly, and Eve wonders what it is she’s not telling her.

But Eve, against her better judgment, believes her.

Even after everything.

Even as she stands before this woman who could kill her at any moment.

_Why?_

“Why did you do it?” Eve finds herself asking before she can stop herself.

“Why did you stab me?”

Eve knows that they’re both desperately grasping at something to hold on to, desperately grasping for control, jockeying for position to be in charge.

Eve knows why she stabbed Villanelle. She can venture to guess why Villanelle shot her.

It’s not the same.

(At least, that’s the lie she tells herself.)

(It’s exactly the same.)

(They’re the same.)

(It’s about control.)

“The places we have scars are about the only similarities between those two incidents, and I think you know that.”

Villanelle’s face is unchanged except for a small twitch of the corner of her mouth, the tiniest tell, but Eve sees it.

She knows Villanelle.

Villanelle knows Eve.

But Eve keeps playing the game.

“I stabbed you for Bill.”

Villanelle scoffs and discards her champagne glass on the kitchen counter, slowly stalking across the room until she stands at the foot of the bed. She makes no move to sit or lay back down. Eve knows she has her back on the defensive. 

“This hasn’t been about your friend for a long time, Eve.”

_No. It hasn’t_ , Eve thinks.

She’s testing Villanelle even though she knows what happens when she does. She needs Villanelle to see that manipulation isn’t how Eve can be loved. That it’s not love. How can they be together if Villanelle can’t—

(Eve shuts that thought down as soon as it comes.)

“And I think you know that,” Villanelle finishes.

Villanelle smirks and moves around the end of the bed, closer to Eve. Still not sitting down.

Eve’s fists clench the duvet.

“You stabbed me to show me how much you care. You stabbed me to prove that you could. And yet, now, you’ve proven to yourself that you can do even more. And still you don’t see how we’re the same. This is what you wanted. But you’re still not happy.”

She doesn’t even bother refuting it. Eve wills her body to stop shaking. She can’t quite decide if its fear that she’s feeling, or something else. Or a combination of something—anger, lust, sorrow, pain—

This _is_ what she wanted.

She knows that she’s been having so much fun playing this game, going on this chase, going toe-to-toe, proving to Villanelle that they’re equals.

_I’m not afraid of anything._

Eve used to be able to think it was just that: a game.

Killing Raymond just made her realize that its never just been a game. Just made what she’s always wondered less abstract.

This darkness is part of who she is.

And that dark part of her is _angry_ because she shouldn’t even be here.

“You manipulated me. I didn’t have to kill Raymond.”

Eve can’t decide what makes her more mad—the fact that she has this capability inside of her or that she keeps denying it.

And that Villanelle is the one to keep bringing it out of her.

“But I wanted you to see that you could.”

Maybe so.

But it doesn’t even matter. Doesn’t matter that now, in the aftermath, Eve feels powerful, feels guilty, feels the satisfaction that Villanelle has seemed to always want her to see.

Because Eve can’t keep being manipulated.

“That isn’t your decision to make. You could have shot him.”

Villanelle stares at her blankly like she did back in Rome. Steel eyes, jaw set, no indication of any feeling whatsoever.

“How does it feel?” Villanelle finally asks.

“What?”

And finally, her face breaks. Villanelle smirks and sits down on the end of the bed. It’s the closest Eve has been to her (that she can remember) since Rome. Since their faces were just centimeters apart. Right before she walked away.

“To have killed someone?”

Eve’s stomach drops. It’s the last thing she wants to be discussing with Villanelle right now.

She knows she set herself up for this question. Hell, even knows that she set herself up for Villanelle to shoot her.

But its too much.

Its too much for now.

She wants to go back to sleep for as long as her body will let her.

“I think I need to rest more.”

She notices the subtle change in Villanelle’s mouth, sees that she’s clenching her jaw tightly despite her attempts to hide it.

“You’re ruining the moment again,” Villanelle responds evenly.

And with that, Villanelle rises from the bed and begins to rummage around the cabin.

Eve closes her eyes and doesn’t respond. Doesn’t fall asleep either.

She thinks about Hugo— _I played dead, the hero’s technique_ and does the same.

Eve keeps her eyes closed, feigns even breathing, and lets her jaw fall open slightly to convince Villanelle she’s asleep.

Eve isn’t sure if it works as she listens to the other woman walking around the cabin, muttering under her breath in a foreign language she can’t quite identify.

She hears something that sounds like Villanelle hoisting a bag over her shoulder and then the door slamming shut.

When she first closes the door, Eve assumes she’s just going outside for some air, maybe going for a drive.

But the night comes. Its 2am and Villanelle still hasn’t returned.

Eve’s stomach growls into the quiet of the cabin, and she finally attempts to sit up, groaning at the pain that pokes at her side.

She holds her breath as she very slowly, very carefully, swings her legs around the bed and stands, gripping the bed and bedside table for support.

She’s amazed at how stable she feels, had half-expected herself to just fall right over once she stood on her own two feet. Instead, Eve carefully pads over to the kitchen and opens the refrigerator door to see it fully stocked.

She spies a container of some sort of chicken entrée leftovers and imagine its something that Villanelle had cooked while she was out.

Eve heats it up and eats it, cursing at how someone so terrible can make something so wonderful.

Villanelle doesn’t return for three days.

 

xx

 

The first thing she observes about the Alaskan wilderness is how quiet it is.

It’s almost unnerving.

Almost.

Villanelle has spent plenty of time in large European cities trying to blend in with those around her. She’s around people all the time. She’s around people all the time to make herself less bored.

Somehow, being by herself, just breathing, just looking, just taking in—it’s one of the most exciting things she’s done in a long time.

She’s been spending some time in Ketchikan, just blending in with other tourists, taking on the role of an Italian traveler who just graduated university and is taking time off to “find herself.” She doesn’t talk to many people but has the whole backstory at the ready.

Villanelle spends several hours the first day she leaves the cabin just staring at the sea, watching ships pass and going in and out, only leaving to find food.

The first night she spends in a tent that she brought with her, along with her myriad other supplies, somewhere in the mountains.

The first night she spends away, she lies awake staring at the stars, thinking about leaving it all behind and flying to Moscow to see what she can find.

_All of mine are dead._

_Most of them_ , Konstantin had said when she mentioned her family.

She can’t help but wonder who she’s left behind without even realizing it.

Or if it even matters.

She thinks about Konstantin, if he’s found his family. The shock and relief they must have felt. She misses him. She’s mad at him. For leaving.

She thinks about Irina, that annoying little brat.

_You’re a good person. Because you’re sad and sad people usually feel things more._

_You’re one of those profound kids._

Villanelle wonders if there’s any truth to what the child had said.

She even thinks about Carolyn, wonders what she’s up to now, wonders if she’ll be coming after her and Eve.

But mostly, Villanelle thinks about Eve.

She thinks about Eve constantly—what Eve would think of this place or that, what she would say about that boat, how she would kill that bystander on the street, what she must be doing.

She doesn’t worry about Eve. Villanelle knows that Eve can survive on her own. She certainly had left her all the tools to do so.

The second night, she camps in a different spot, close to a lake, and watches in awe how the moon reflects off of the water.

She thinks about the gun steady in her hand as she pulled the trigger and left a permanent mark on Eve. Villanelle’s hand wanders to the scar that Eve left on her, smiles as she thinks about how she has now left one in the same spot.

She sees things a little clearer now. Eve stabbed her to prove to Villanelle that she can go head-to-head with her. That she isn’t weak. That she wanted to keep this chase up, didn’t want it to end.

Her own unique way of saying she cares.

And still Villanelle wanted more. Wanted Eve to see that she was capable of so much more.

And oh, _she was._

Villanelle’s breath is ragged as she thinks about the axe in Eve’s hands, her primal screams as Villanelle had held Raymond still and Eve took the life from him. Had saved her.

Saved them.

She thinks about how Eve had chosen her, had wanted to be with her. Was going to run away _with her._

Until she saw the gun.

Her hand falls away from her scar and reaches beside her on the ground. Villanelle holds the same gun in her hands, her fingers running over it softly, thinking about the damage its done.

She tosses it into the lake without a second thought.

(She has plenty more weapons on her anyway.)

She wants to be better for Eve.

She wants something more normal. If its even possible.

Eve is _hers._

Villanelle doesn’t understand why Eve can’t see that. Why Eve won’t want her back.

Doesn’t understand what else went wrong.

On the third day, she gets bored. She misses Eve—now that Villanelle has had her in her grasp, had her breath against her lips and _so fucking close,_ she finds that she can barely stand being apart from her.

Despite everything.

Because Eve chose her once.

Villanelle just has to figure out how to make her stay.

Villanelle arrives back at the cabin later that night, having stopped at a restaurant for takeout to bring back to Eve.

Eve is trying to get the television to work when she returns, and she’s clearly not happy.

Villanelle watches as Eve tosses the remote on the bed with more force than seems necessary and marches over closer to Villanelle.

“Where the hell have you been?”

Villanelle just shrugs because she’s not entirely sure where she’s been for most of the past three days, just that she found her way back.

“Out.”

“And you thought it was a good idea to just leave someone with a gunshot wound alone for three days?”

“I had my phone on me,” Villanelle responds, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

(She leaves out the part where her phone was dead most of the time because she had no access to outlets.)

Eve reaches out and bats a fist against Villanelle’s shoulder. And another one. And another one.

Villanelle just takes it all in stride, knowing Eve isn’t using anywhere close to her full strength, knowing that she just needs to get some of her anger out.

Villanelle will let her have this round.

“I don’t have any fucking service here! We’re halfway around the world in the fucking mountains!”

Villanelle reaches out with quick reflexes and grabs the fists, which are now increasing in force, and its making her annoyed.

“Calm down, you’ll hurt yourself even more.”

“Hurt _myself_? You’re the one you shot me, you psycho.”

Villanelle’s grip tightens on Eve’s hands.

“What have I told you about using that word?”

_I love you._

_You don’t understand what that means._

Villanelle wonders if other psychopaths feel as deeply as she does.

Feel what Eve makes her feel.

Villanelle takes a deep breath, keeps holding Eve’s hands, can’t help but run her thumbs along the smooth skin of her wrists.

She doesn’t ever want to let her go.

“How are you being so calm right now?” Eve finally asks.

Villanelle sighs and finally lets Eve’s hands drop from her grasp.

“Solitude really helps. I could take you out into the mountains if you’d like. It’s very nice.”

“I can’t imagine I’d get very far,” Eve replies, motioning to her side.  

Villanelle snorts.

“Suit yourself.”

She reaches for the bags that she’d placed on the ground near the door when she’d came in, picking up a plastic bag with multiple takeout containers inside.

“I brought spaghetti.”

Villanelle doesn’t know if it’s the pouty look she knows that she’s giving or the fact that Eve is extremely hungry, but she _swears_ she sees the smallest hint of a smile on the woman’s face when she says it.

Eve takes the bag out of her grasp and mumbles a thank you as she rests it on the kitchen counter and sits at one of the stools.

They eat in silence, Villanelle watching Eve as she decimates another meatball with her fork.

“Do you know why I shot you?” Villanelle asks.

“No. Please enlighten me,” Eve replies sarcastically.  

Eve only seems to be half paying attention to her, and Villanelle figure it’s a defense mechanism. Like she’s not entirely sure what Villanelle is going to say.

So she does what she does best.

She baits her.

“I shot you because it was the only way you would come with me.”

“You didn’t exactly give me a choice,” Eve retorts.

It’s not the complete truth, but its also not the whole truth. Shooting Eve certainly helped get her to Alaska.

Eve can deny things all she wants, but Villanelle can do it just as well.

Eve continues eating in silence, and Villanelle waits. Waits to see if Eve will catch her in a lie. _Wants_ Eve to catch her like she’s wanted Eve to catch her and find her ever since they first met.

“And that’s not why you did it,” Eve finally says.

Eve sets her fork down and pushes her plate out of the way, folding her hands together and staring directly at Villanelle.

“You and I are the same, remember? I know why you did it.”

It’s intoxicating when Eve gets like this—confident and wading through the parts of Villanelle that no one else seems to understand, that Eve seems to understand so easily.

Villanelle remains composed on the outside but inside, her heart is pounding.

“You shot me because you needed to feel like you were in control. You shot me because I took all these steps to choose you, but when I started slipping away, you couldn’t handle it.”

Villanelle’s jaw tightens. She once said that she knew Eve better than she knows herself.

Villanelle finds that the converse is true. Sometimes she loves to listen to Eve talk just so she can learn more about herself. Eve seems to know things that Villanelle hasn’t quite been able to put into words.

Even the things she doesn’t want to know about herself.

“I make you feel out of control, don’t I?”

She feels like a bowstring pulled tight, and Eve is the archer that lets her go with that statement.

Something shifts, and it feels like she’s standing back in Rome all over again with Eve starting to walk away. Telling her she doesn’t understand. She _does_ understand. It’s Eve who doesn’t understand.

“Did you think shooting me would show me how much you care about me? You can’t control me and love me at the same time, _Oksana_.”

It feels like Eve is pulling her back and letting go in rapid succession.

She just doesn’t get it.

She doesn’t know how to make her see.

_You’re mine._

And then she makes the string snap altogether.

“I know that’s what Anna and god knows who else taught you, but if you want to be normal like you say you do—”

“Don’t talk about her.”

Eve sits back, sneers at her, lets out a laugh without a smile behind it.

“You killed her too, didn’t you?”

“Anna shot herself in front of me and Irina.”

Villanelle spies the smallest flash of guilt pass through Eve’s face.

She doesn’t want Eve’s sympathy.

She doesn’t want comparisons to Anna or Nadia or anyone else.

She doesn’t _want_ anyone else.

“She was weak. They’re all weak. You’re not weak, Eve.”

Eve stares her down, unblinking as she responds.

“No, I’m not.”

Eve gets up and heads toward the bathroom. Villanelle waits until she hears the stream of the shower and finishes the remains of Eve’s spaghetti.

Villanelle puts their plates in the sink, heads to the door, grabs the duffel bag that hasn’t even been opened yet, and heads out again.

 

xx

 

She spends most of the day hiking, finding a trail and blending in with other travelers looking for a vista point to post to their Instagrams. And really, some of the sights take her breath away.

Alaska really is amazing.

It’s early November, and a fresh layer of snow coats the trees, the ground, the mountains. It’s idyllic. She wonders if Eve would be willing to stay up and try to see the Northern Lights with her sometime.

She’s mad at her, but she can’t stop thinking about her. Villanelle still wishes she were here.

_You can’t love me and control me at the same time._

But Villanelle doesn’t want to give up control. She has to control other people’s reactions.

If she doesn’t, then they leave.

Right?

But then she thinks about Anna, how she did everything she could to get her to stay. How she’d gotten rid of Max, and still Anna wasn’t happy. She’d tried to control Eve, and still, she wasn’t happy. How even Konstantin had left.

She doesn’t want to tell Eve that she’s right.

She wants to love Eve, wants to know how to do it in a way that Eve understands.

Villanelle looks out over the snow-covered mountains again as the sky darkens, having waited for the other onlookers to leave.

It’s beautiful.

It makes her feel small. Like there’s something more powerful out there than her but won’t hurt her. Won’t touch her if she watches it from a distance.

She sits and stares until the moon is the only thing illuminating the horizon, grabs a flashlight, and heads back.

Villanelle notices a single lamp light on as she pulls back up to the cabin in the middle of the night, careful to make as little noise as possible as she opens the cabin door to find Eve sound asleep with the bedside lamp on, a random book from the small shelf in the room draped open across her chest.

Even in her sleep, she looks torn—eyebrows knit together, shifting every so often in discomfort. Villanelle wonders what she’s dreaming about.

She watches Eve for a few minutes longer and carefully grabs two pillows from the queen-sized bed, taking them toward the bear rug with a blanket that’s draped over a couch. She turns the lamp off and falls asleep on the bear rug.

Villanelle wakes to the sound of Eve rattling pots and pans looking through the kitchen cabinets and the smell of coffee. She groans as she rolls over in the direction of the noise.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like someone shot me.”

Villanelle smirks and stretches, sitting up and taming the hairs that have flown out of her ponytail during the night. She grabs some supplies out of the fridge and dances around Eve in the kitchen to use the blender to make herself a smoothie. They float around the small space quietly, somehow still so in sync. It’s comforting. It’s domestic. Villanelle hums quietly while she cuts up a banana and tosses it in the blender, and she swears she hears Eve join in with her even quieter when she recognizes the song. She turns back toward Eve before starting the blender, but she’s still looking away from her. Villanelle presses the power button and lets the noise of the blender fill her head.

She pours it into a glass and takes it with her to the bathroom to get ready for the day.

When she comes back out twenty minutes later, Eve has changed too and is finishing a plate of eggs and toast.

Villanelle gets an idea.

“Do you think you’re up for a little drive?”

Eve narrows her eyes like she doesn’t quiet trust her and asks warily, “Where?”

“I’d like to show you something.”

Eve sighs, chewing on the last bit of over-easy eggs (that look god-awful—Eve should really just let Villanelle cook for her all the time) and holding tight to the handle of her coffee mug.

“And how do I know you’re not going to kill me?”

Villanelle laughs to hide the hurt. She wants to do better. But she finds its hard to do better when Eve is making her upset.

She cocks an eyebrow and holds up her arms.

“Would you like to search me?”

Eve cocks her head to the side, her eyes raking over Villanelle’s body up and down. It’s sexy. Villanelle wishes she would come over and kiss her. That they could put all this behind them now and just fall into bed.

(If only it were that simple.)

“Yes.”

Eve gets up out of her chair and comes to stand in front of Villanelle. Their height difference used to make Villanelle feel in control. But ever since Rome, it frightens her. The last time Eve was this close, she’d pulled away.

This time, its Eve who reaches out to touch Villanelle. She starts by pulling on one side of the padded jacket she’s wearing and placing a hand on either side, scanning for weapons. She repeats this motion with the other side and runs her hands up and down both arms. Eve doesn’t break eye contact as she slips the jacket off of Villanelle’s body and runs her hands along the arms of the thin sweater she’s wearing.

It’s thrilling—to have her this close again. To have Eve’s hands on her body, and knowing she can’t make a move to reach out and touch Eve without breaking the moment. It feels different now. They both have the power to reach out and break the other. It’s terrifying. It’s _exhilarating._

Villanelle feels Eve’s hands begin to shake as she moves them along her sides and closer to her breasts, and then skips over them completely. She considers commenting, but it dies on her lips as Eve reaches around and skates her hands down to her ass and grabs.

Villanelle can’t control the gasp that flies out from her lips but takes an even breath to regain control.

“Easy there, Kill Commander.”

“Well, I tried to kill a man by axing him in a shoulder. You really think I know where assassins hide weapons?”

“You really think I’m going to stick a knife up my ass?”

Eve lets go and takes a step out of her space. Villanelle has to hold her hands behind her back to keep from reaching out and touching her.

“It honestly wouldn’t surprise me at this point.”

“Mmmm, Eve. Kinky.”

Eve rolls her eyes and turns away from Villanelle, going to the coat rack near the door and reaching for a jacket.

“Fine. I’ll go with you.”

Villanelle does her best to hold back a smile and fails. She nods, ushering Eve outside toward the car, seeing Eve shiver as they step outside, and Villanelle realizes it’s the first time in about a week that Eve has been outside.

“Are you warm enough?” she asks, reaching for her before she can stop herself.

“I’m fine,” Eve mumbles, opening the passenger side door and sitting down with a huff.

They drive in silence, Villanelle occasionally glancing over to see Eve relax more the further they go along, and the eventual smile she fails to hide as Villanelle sings along to the radio. Eve finally turns away from her when Villanelle catches Eve’s eyes and sees her smiling.

The car climbs through the switchbacks in the gravel road until Villanelle pulls over.

“Where the hell are you taking me?”

“Just trust me,” Villanelle says as she exits the car.

“You honestly expect me to do that?” Eve replies. It’s casual, though, with no venom behind it. Villanelle wonders if Eve has started to forgive her yet.

Villanelle leads her through a path in the forest, and five minutes later, they’re at a lookout. Villanelle is all child-like wonder at the scene that she had stumbled upon yesterday while driving around—the mountains, the town below them, the sea, the view stretching on for miles. She turns excitedly to her right to see Eve’s reaction.

Eve’s jaw is dropped; her eyes scan around the scene, never resting on just one spot, like if she looks at one part too long the rest of the landscape will disappear before her eyes, like she has to drink it all in at once.

“Wow,” Eve whispers.

“That’s Deer Mountain over there,” Villanelle says, pointing to a peak off to their left. “I hiked it yesterday, but I wasn’t sure you’d be up for that.”

“No, I don’t think I would be,” Eve deadpans.

Eve stares out at the mountains, and Villanelle stares at her.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

Villanelle wonders if they can just stay here forever. She feels like she’ll never get bored.

“How does it make you feel?” Villanelle asks, and she’s counting on Eve to understand. She _has_ to understand.

“Small.”

Villanelle can’t help the wide smile that crosses her face because Eve gets it. Eve gets her.

“Tell me more.”

“Like I could stand here forever and never really comprehend the beauty of what I’m looking at. Like if I blink the whole mountain range could just swallow me whole at once, or if I look away it’ll disappear. Like, do you think the tallest mountains realize how powerful they are? How deadly they are? How many they’ve killed just because people can’t get enough and feel the need to conquer them or control them? Even though it can bring you to your knees just by watching from a distance. But the closer you get, it just draws you in. Makes people do crazy things. Makes them risk their lives just to be closer.”

Eve shakes her head as she keeps talking, still staring off into the distance.

“Even when you reach the top, you haven’t really controlled it. And then what?”

Villanelle’s heart is pounding as Eve turns toward her and shrugs, with a look on her face that says _I’m probably way overthinking this, but that’s what I feel._

But Eve’s not overthinking it. She’s not reading into it.

It makes sense.

Villanelle’s voice is barely above a whisper when she replies.

“That is how you make me feel.”

Eve’s eyes stare back at Villanelle as she steps forward, reaches out and places a palm on her cheek. Villanelle sucks in a breath as Eve comes even, and then she’s on her tiptoes, leaning around. Villanelle closes her eyes. She feels out of control.

But she doesn’t hate it right now.

But then she feels Eve’s breath against the shell of her ear as she whispers, “I still haven’t forgiven you.”

There’s a rush of cold air as Eve steps away, and by the time Villanelle is able to open her eyes again, Eve is walking back toward the car.

 

xx

 

_That is how you make me feel._

The moment plays on a loop in Eve’s head as they head back to the cabin. She’s leaning against the window of the car because even in Alaska, she feels overheated, like she’s on fire. Just from having Villanelle close to her again.

She’s indulging herself in little moments throughout the past few days—touching Villanelle, teasing her, letting her have just a little bit of insight to how Eve is feeling. As if these little bits will tide Eve over and make the craving for Villanelle go away.

But she’s quickly realized she’s only fooling herself.

Eve just wants more. Every moment feels more charged. Every touch feels like she’s going to burn. Every look makes her want to strip Villanelle bare more and more.

Villanelle makes her want things that a normal person shouldn’t want.

And Eve is loosening her grip on normal.

“Are you feeling okay?” Villanelle asks at one point.

“I feel fine.”

“I could make shepherd’s pie when we get home if you’d like,” she suggests.

_Home._

Villanelle considers this home.

Considers somewhere with Eve a home.

This isn’t home.

(Or that’s what she tells herself.)

 “This isn’t home.”

“And where is home for you, Eve?”

London hasn’t felt like home for awhile. Nowhere feels like home.

Eve could slap herself for the first thing that comes to her mind when Villanelle asks.

_You._

“I don’t know anymore,” she says instead.  

Villanelle doesn’t reply, and after a few minutes, Eve decides to turn it back to her.

“Where’s home for you, _Oksana_?”

The use of her given name is deliberate. Eve wants to know it all, wants to know what made her into Villanelle. She wants to know everything.

_I think about you all the time._

(And she still does.)

“If that’s your way of getting me to try to talk about Russia, I’m not doing it.”

And Eve smiles, because she should know better that it wouldn’t be that easy. But it’s worth a shot.

Her smile grows when Villanelle adds, “Not yet.”

They’re another five minutes into the drive when Villanelle mumbles, barely loud enough for Eve to hear.

“Maybe someday we can build a new home.”

It could tear her heart in two, that statement. Because _oh_ , Eve wants it. She can’t let herself want it, but she does.

“Maybe.”

Eve surprises herself with the honesty of her answer but doesn’t look at Villanelle to see the satisfaction on her face. The rest of the drive is spent in silence, no lighthearted singing along to the radio. Just somber silence as the two of them think about how to stop tearing each other apart.

They don’t speak once they make it back home— _to the cabin_ , she corrects herself. Eve goes to lay in bed, pretending that she’s tired and needs to rest, that she’s in pain. Villanelle lets her have her space and disappears outside.

She doesn’t return again until after dark.

Still, they don’t speak. Villanelle heads into the kitchen with a plastic bag that appears to be from a grocery store while Eve dozes off, ignoring her.

She wakes awhile later to the smell of shepherd’s pie, and Villanelle wordlessly offers her a plate.

She thinks back to their first meeting, how Villanelle had clearly planned the dish for that reason.

Eve’s head screams that Villanelle is just manipulating her again. Eve’s heart screams that she doesn’t want to keep fighting—she just wants mountains and shepherd’s pie and Villanelle.

_Normal stuff. Someone to watch movies with._

Eve realizes they’re both drifting into each others’ orbits. Villanelle wants more normalcy, and Eve wants excitement, wants to let fling herself into the darkness more and more every day.

She wonders if they can ever somehow meet in the middle.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” Eve asks when Villanelle hands her the plate.

She doesn’t even know if there are any in the cabin. The TV struggles to get any signal, but a DVD player sits on the cabinet beneath it.

Villanelle grins, genuinely grins, and nods, turning over every surface in the cabin to see if she can find a movie.

“Yeah, I—let me see if I can find any. Or I can run out and find something? Anything you want.”

“Villanelle, we’re 30 minutes from the nearest town. It’s not worth the drive.”

She shrugs and throws her hands in the air.

“But you want it. You should be able to have what you want.”

And just like that, the spell is broken. Because Villanelle is still looking at her in terms of possession. Now it just seems that she’s oscillating from getting everything she wants to giving Eve everything.

Eve wants to cry because she knows she’s only fooling herself that they can find a middle ground.

Villanelle picks up on the shift immediately and lets her arms fall to her side.

“Did I say something wrong?”

Villanelle sits next to Eve on the bed, and Eve pulls back.

“You can’t expect yourself to give me everything I want.”

Villanelle looks at Eve like she has two heads.

“Why not?”

And again, Eve finds that despite their similarities, despite their mutual want to believe that they’re the same, that they still see the world very differently.

“I don’t need you to take care of me all the time.”

Villanelle just stares at her, clearly confused, because its clear that she thought she had finally figured out what Eve wants.

_Eve_ isn’t even sure what she wants.

“We’re equals,” Eve states.

Villanelle just smirks and leans closer, and Eve can feel the sheets on the bed shift with how Villanelle clenches them in her fist.

“That scares you, doesn’t it?”

Eve leans in closer.

“I think it scares you more.”

_You want me to be a mess. You want me to be scared._

Villanelle sucks in a breath and balks, leans away from Eve. She narrows her eyes but doesn’t move back any more.

“You were wrong, you know,” Villanelle whispers.

Eve isn’t quite sure what Villanelle means.

There’s a lot of things Eve could be wrong about. She knows that.

She’ll just never tell Villanelle.

“What?”

“I don’t want you to be scared. I don’t want you to be a mess either. I just—”

Villanelle leans closer again. Her eyes flicker down to Eve’s lips.

Eve shivers.

“I meant what I said, you know.”

_I love you. I do._

Eve doesn’t have to ask to know what Villanelle is referring to. She can tell from the look in her eyes.

Eve doesn’t argue with her, but she still disagrees.

She wants to believe that Villanelle loves her, has the capacity to love her.

Everything she’s learned about psychopathy and everything she knows about Villanelle seem to be in perfect harmony in some places and diametrically opposed in others. She thinks about Aaron Peel, how he wanted to own everything, how emotionless he seemed. Villanelle has never been emotionless to her. Eve can see that she feels things deeply, as misguided as those feelings are.

Nothing makes sense.

“But I won’t say it again if it scares you,” Villanelle adds.  

Villanelle gets up from the bed and doesn’t say another word.

Eve doesn’t tell her that its not being loved by Villanelle that scares her but that Eve loves her back.  

Villanelle disappears into the night again.

Eve tries to sleep and can’t.

The clock reads 12:37am when she finally gets out of bed, puts on more layers, and goes outside.

She turns the porch light on and is nearly blinded by the bright snow. The car is gone, and flurries are falling, dancing in and out of the little bit of light.

It’s just enough for Eve to be able to see a large stack of logs out back.

Wedged into a stump is an axe.

_Pretend he’s a log!_

The vomit that Eve has been holding back since she took an axe to Raymond’s skull finally leaves her system, and Eve drops to the snow and sobs.

She doesn’t cry for the life she’s taken. She doesn’t cry for Niko. She doesn’t cry for Bill or Frank or Elena or Kenny or Hugo.

She cries for the time she’s wasted not giving in to everything she wants. How complacent she’d become with her mundane life. She _hates_ it. She hates herself for ever thinking she could go back home, convincing herself that she wanted to go back home.

Home is wherever Villanelle is, even if its just the two of them surrounded in flames.

Eve realizes that all they have left is each other and pries the axe from the stump.

She grabs the first log, places it on the stump, and screams into the night as she splits it in two.

 

xx

 

They’ve barely spoken since Villanelle returned this time around. Eve has complained of being tired and sore, lets Villanelle check and change her bandages, but they don’t talk much.

She’s stopped trying to guess what Eve wants for now.

Villanelle is about to open the door and head out again for the day, to where she’s not quite sure. She stops herself and turns toward Eve, who sits on the couch and reads.

“Did you want to come with me today?”

“Where are you going?” Eve asks without looking away from the pages.  

“Outside. It’s very nice out.”

Eve rolls her eyes at the vague response.

“The mountains are getting boring. Things are less boring with you,” Villanelle adds.

_I feel things when I am with you._

Eve sets the book down.

“Where do you want to go?”

“We could sneak onto a cruise ship. They’re very popular around here.”

Eve laughs, and Villanelle pictures the two of them in bikinis lounging around a cruise ship’s indoor pool.

“I don’t think so.”

“We could stay in too. I could get a movie,” Villanelle suggests.

“If you’d like,” she adds when Eve doesn’t reply.  

Villanelle’s heart pounds as Eve smiles and nods.

Villanelle is out the door and in the car before Eve can change her mind.

She returns with about a dozen DVDs, unable to pick just one or two, and Eve seems surprised as she flips through her selections, which are mostly feel-good classic romantic comedies.

Villanelle feels like she might explode when Eve pops _Clueless_ into the DVD player, and though she’s seen it several times, Villanelle watches with rapt attention.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this happy,” Eve says to her at one point during the movie.

Villanelle is smiling, and her arm is draped around the back of the couch, somewhat behind Eve’s shoulders, and Villanelle wonders if this is how the idiots in these movies are supposed to feel.

Eve grabs the remote and presses pause. She speaks before Villanelle can protest.

“You really want this? To be normal?”

She wants Eve. However Eve will have her. She wants to learn how to show Eve how much she cares in a way that she’ll understand. Villanelle wants to teach Eve how to love her in a way that she understands.

“I want whatever you’ll give me.”

Eve stares back with the softest look in her eyes, and like she’s done several times before, places a hand on Villanelle’s cheek.

It feels different this time.

It feels like a promise.

Because Eve understands that Villanelle is trying. That she wants to try to learn to give and take.

_Will you give me everything I want?_

“I love you, Oksana.”

Her lip quivers, and she knows for certain that the way she feels about Eve makes everything else pale in comparison. She doesn’t understand it all yet, but she wants to. She doesn’t know if it’ll end well, but she wants to hope.

Eve makes her want in a way she’s never felt.

_We’re the same._

Her eyes well up, and she just shakes her head.

“You don’t understand what that means.”

And Eve smiles, because she _gets it._ Oksana doesn’t mean it in the sense that Eve doesn’t understand what love is.

She means it in the sense that she wants Eve to understand what she’s getting herself into—what they’re both getting themselves into.

She wants Eve to understand what loving Oksana Astankova looks like, smells like, feels like, tastes like, sounds like.

Because its different.

“I do,” Eve whispers.  

“You’re mine,” Oksana whispers back, softer this time. Not a feral, desperate scream begging for control.

Something different. Something she’s not quite sure she understands yet.  

Something she’s trying to trust that they’ll figure out together.

She feels Eve tense at the statement, but Oksana isn’t finished yet.

“And I’m yours.”

Eve falls into her and presses her lips against Oksana’s. Eve’s other hand comes to join the first, cupping her face and pressing her into the end of the couch while Oksana’s arms wrap around Eve’s back. Eve kisses her like she’s dying, and in a way they both are, both shedding parts of themselves to take on something new.

To take it on together.

Eve bites her lower lip, and Oksana moans when Eve takes it deeper into her mouth and sucks on her lip to soothe the bite. Eve’s hands are everywhere—her stomach, her thighs, her arms—like she can’t get enough. Oksana runs a hand up Eve’s side and stops when she feels bandages underneath Eve’s shirt. It takes all of her remaining self-control to pry Eve from her lips, and even then, Eve chases her way back.

Oksana holds her off just long enough to reach her hand underneath the fabric and onto Eve’s bandages like a warning.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she whispers.

“I’m okay,” Eve replies. “You won’t break me.”

Oksana wonders if Eve is only talking about their present activities but files that away for later.

Oksana takes her other hand and grabs at Eve’s shirt, and Eve lifts her arms to help it off with ease. Eve is quick to unclip her bra and toss it somewhere to the side, and Oksana thinks she’ll never look at a mountain landscape again when she has Eve Polastri to admire.

“Wow,” she whispers. “Beautiful.”

“Bed. Now,” Eve demands, and Oksana feels an _ache_ between her legs for this woman.

Oksana leans up and kisses her again, and they untangle themselves just enough to make it to the bed, their lips parting only when they absolutely have to.

Eve pushes Oksana onto the bed, and she lets her.

She feels out of control.

And she _welcomes_ it.

Eve’s lips and teeth and tongue assault her neck, and Oksana wonders if its possible for her to die like this.

_Prolific assassin killed by beautiful woman’s lips._

There could be worse ways to go.

Oksana can barely process it all—the way Eve tugs at her shirt, the deftness with which she undoes Eve’s zipper and shucks her pants and underwear away.

They’re laid bare before each other, and its all Oksana can do to hold herself together.

“I love you,” she whispers. Because she doesn’t know what else to say. It doesn’t feel like enough.

She kisses all over her chest. A hand goes up to grab one of Eve’s breasts, and Eve mirrors the movement as Oksana kisses her again. Oksana kisses down her neck, kisses across her chest, swirls her tongue around a nipple and lets go with a pop. She wants to worship Eve for as long as she’ll let her.

All the while, Eve squirms above her, her knees bracketing either side of Oksana’s hips, squeezing together and grinding down on Oksana’s stomach with sinful moans she’s imagined since they first met.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Eve whines as she grinds down.

“Let me take care of you, Eve,” she whispers, guiding Eve toward her until they’re pressed against each others’ fronts, and Oksana slowly rolls them over until Eve is laying on the bed.

Eve lays a finger on Oksana’s scar and can’t help but flinch at the contact.

Oksana leans down to Eve’s side and gently presses her lips to the bandages there.

She kisses all over Eve’s stomach while the woman beneath her writhes and chants “fuck, please, Oksana, yes, yes, god.”

Oksana kisses her harder when she hears Eve say her name, slips a thigh in between Eve’s legs and hears her cry out.

“I want your mouth.”

Oksana stares down at Eve, whose pupils are blown wide, and the look on her face is the sexiest thing she’s ever seen.

“Please, _Oksana_.”  

Seconds later, Oksana is burying her face between Eve’s thighs to the tune of her moans, her breathy high-pitched sounds that she never wants anyone but herself to hear.

_You’re mine._

_I’m yours._

All she can taste is Eve. All she can feel is Eve’s thighs pressed against her head, muffling the sounds of her cries. Eve’s hands pulling on Oksana’s hair.

It’s just the two of them, and nothing else matters.

Eve comes against Oksana’s mouth with her legs wrapped tight around her, heels pressed into Oksana’s back, hands pulling at her hair so tightly she worries that Eve might pull it out.

Oksana _feels._

She feels sorry for those she’s been profiled to be like because she knows they’ll never feel the way she’s feeling right now.

 

xx

 

Eve wakes up to a warm, naked body pressed against her, a hand wrapped protectively around her bandages.

“Morning.”

And damn it if Oksana’s raspy morning voice isn’t so much sexier in person.

Eve can’t help but smile as the half-asleep woman behind her nuzzles her nose into her neck and presses a gentle kiss in her hair.

“Did you sleep well?”

This time, instead of running from it, Eve leans into it like she leans back into the body pressed against her.

She feels wide awake.

**Author's Note:**

> @ producers, hire me. 
> 
> also some of this was unbeta-ed because i wanted to get it up tonight so please ignore any mistakes because i'm going to go through and check it.


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